Electronic components (parts), such as resistors and capacitors are well known and often have axial lead wires. These components are typically mounted on a printed circuit board for combination with other parts in a circuit. The mounting of these parts on the circuit board is accomplished by an automatic mounting apparatus, which receives groups of parts and rearranges them for assembly onto the circuit board. The parts of a given type are supplied to the automatic apparatus on a tape that is wound on a spool, and the automatic apparatus must separate the parts from the tape and rearrange the parts for use by an automatic assembly apparatus. The rearranged parts are retaped for use by an automatic assembly machine.
One prior art machine, disclosed in JITSU-KAI-SHO 62-118004, (Published utility model document No. 118004 of 1987) separates parts from a strip of parts by cutting the lead wires. The parts having the shortened lead wires are then retaped after rearrangement. This method suffers from the drawback that the wires are shortened by the separation process, which wastes a significant amount of material.
Another prior art machine is shown in TOKU-KAI-SHO 58-165400 (Published patent document No. 165400 of 1983). This machine removes the electronic parts from tape strips by heating the tapes to soften the adhesive and then pulling the tape strips away from the lead wires. This method has the drawback that the softened adhesive is sticky and a significant amount of the adhesive remains on the lead even after the tape has been pulled away. This remaining adhesive disrupts the operation of the retaping machine.